Why aren’t the banksters in prison? A criminal conspiracy "on a massive scale,"

[Ichingcarpenter]

On Wednesday, five major international banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, America’s largest and third-largest financial institutions, pleaded guilty to felony charges for helping to manipulate global foreign exchange markets, paying a wrist-slap fine of about $1 billion apiece.
The financial impact on JPMorgan and the other banks for pleading guilty to a felony will be effectively zero. As part of the deal, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued waivers exempting the banks from the legal repercussions arising from their status as criminal organizations, giving them continued preferential treatment in issuing debt, as well as the continued right to operate mutual funds.


Despite the claims by Justice Department officials of a criminal conspiracy "on a massive scale," carried out with "breathtaking flagrancy," there was no talk of breaking up JPMorgan or any other bank, let alone bringing criminal charges against any of their executives.


The rigging of global foreign exchange rates is only the latest in the string of crimes, frauds and criminal conspiracies for which JPMorgan has been fined by US and international regulators.

* In January 2013, JPMorgan, together with 10 other banks, agreed to pay a combined $8.5 billion to settle charges that they forged documents to foreclose homes more quickly.

* In November 2013, the bank agreed to pay $13 billion to settle charges that it defrauded investors by selling fraudulent mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse in 2007 and 2008.

* That same month, JPMorgan paid $4.5 billion to settle charges that it defrauded pension funds and other institutional investors to whom it sold mortgage bonds.

* In December 2013, JPMorgan and eight other banks were fined $2.3 billion for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the global benchmark interest rate on which the values of trillions of dollars in securities are based.
* In January 2014, JPMorgan paid $2 billion in fines and penalties to settle charges that it profited from and helped operate Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

As a result of the crimes perpetrated by JPMorgan and other banks over the past decade, millions of people have had their homes foreclosed, and millions more have lost their jobs, while countless university endowments, pension plans, and municipalities have been swindled out of billions of dollars.

Based on this partial list of only the latest and largest crimes carried out by JPMorgan, it is no exaggeration to conclude that America's largest bank is a criminal organization. Why then is it impossible to prosecute, much less jail, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the mastermind of all of these crimes and conspiracies?

The answer to this question lies in the vast retrogression in social relations that has taken place in America amid the enormous growth of social inequality. Behind the increasingly threadbare outwards trappings of democracy,

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/22/pers-m22.html


Under RICO, a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" drawn from a list of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an "enterprise". Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity."


Although its primary intent was to deal with organized crime, Blakey said that Congress never intended it to merely apply to the Mob. He once told Time, "We don't want one set of rules for people whose collars are blue or whose names end in vowels, and another set for those whose collars are white and have Ivy League diplomas."





G. Robert Blakey, an adviser to the United States Senate Government Operations Committee, drafted the law under the close supervision of the committee's chairman, Senator John Little McClellan. It was enacted as Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and signed into law by Richard M. Nixon. While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#cite_note-Time-2


Tell me that these criminal crimes are not racketeering.
A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, that will not be put into effect, or that would not otherwise exist if the racket did not exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.

S.Rep. No. 617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1968). However, the statute is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)


Well I know that I'm right and also know why too big to jail, to big to fail Holder never did shit about the law.

other examples of criminal behavior.


In March 2010, Wachovia Bank, revealed it had ‘laundered’ $378.4 billion dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel, through a network of exchange houses, or casas de cambio, between 2004 and 2007.

Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo Bank, avoided prosecution by paying $160 million; a very small sum considering the laundered amount corresponds to one-third of Mexico’s Gross Domestic Product for one year.




This financial oligarchy controls all the levers of power in contemporary society. The media, courts, politicians and so-called financial regulators are all under the thumb of the Wall Street mafiosos. Far from seeking to restrain Wall Street’s criminality, the government functions to facilitate and cover up for its crimes.


In exchange, politicians are provided with millions of dollars in campaign contributions and "speaking fees," while top financial regulators are invariably assured high-paying positions on Wall Street after their stints with the government.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Same reason Bush and Cheney aren't. Jail is for the little people.

[Enthusiast]

2. It's a special time in America!

[Demeter]

3. We have two tools: the ballot box, and insurrection

Having made the ballot box ineffective in forcing change, the 1% have left us with the alternatives of peaceful or violent insurrection.

Peaceful insurrection, of which voting may be considered a part, is the preferred alternative, of course. And we are supposed to pursue this while scraping out a living in the worst economy since 1930?

Karl Rove has a lot to answer for, and the BFEE, when it comes to destroying this nation.

[Scuba]

4. This will go down as a large part of the Obama legacy. Consorting with criminals. Failure ...

... to prosecute those criminals. All of it shameful.

[Doctor_J]

5. it's either 12d chess, or Eric holder not wanting to appear like an angry black man.

Or maybe it's simpler...like dimon and the president being golfing buddies

[GoneFishin]

6. The line between campaign contributions and bribery has been erased, and FOX has dumbed down

enough viewers so that they are unable to know the difference.

Any solution would involve people organizing over the internet, because every conventional form of media has right wing gatekeepers.

So it makes sense that they would want to control the internet as well.

[Martin Eden]

7. The fact that these banks can afford those fines ...

... exposes just the tip of the iceberg of the vast wealth they are accumulating through their racketeering.

Financial institutions, properly structured and regulated, can fill a vital role in an economy that works for everyone. But what we have today is better characterized as a parasitic entity that sucks the life out of its host.

[GoneFishin]

8. Based on this approach parking meter violation tickets should be 5 cents, and the penalty for

armed robbery should be 5% of the take.

[olddots]

9. could it be ......the banks have always owned the prisons ?

in one way or another .